Datasite Orlando Signs First Tenant

The main data center floor at Burges Property Company's new Datasite Orlando.

For a new data center, the first tenant is a big deal. Datasite Orlando hit that milestone last week when it announced a five-year lease with Infinitum Technologies, which will be housing 15 racks in the company's facility in Orlando, Fla.

Datasite Orlando is a former AT&T disaster recovery center that was acquired by Burges Property Company, which has invested $26 million in retrofitting the 130,000 square foot facility, which offers up to 85,000 square feet of raised floor technical space.

“We have worked with seven data centers throughout the last few years and hosted with several of them,” said Sean Faircloth, president of Infinitum Technologies, which provides virtual private servers. “We can say with confidence DataSite is by far the most technologically advanced and well-run data center we have encountered to date. DataSite has built a rock-solid facility with ample room for us to expand our business and we are very excited to be the first clients on the floor."

Retrofitting an existing data center facility is perhaps the quickest path to bringing new mission-critical space online. But overhauling a facility that has been idle creates both opportunities and challenges. Datasite Orlando is a unique facility, with generous space for traditional data center operations, as well as infrastructure to support liquid cooling suitable for supercomputers or extreme density server racks.

An unusual feature is the facility’s generators, which run on kerosene rather than diesel fuel. Facility manager Ray Sanders said the kerosene generator (pictured at right) could provide an advantage in lengthy utility outages caused by a hurricane or other disaster, when many generator owners will be seeking diesel fuel in a situation where supply is likely to be limited. A large kerosene depot supports the nearby Orlando Airport, and can provide additional supply for Datasite Orlando.

The renovation included the removal of 32,000 pounds of old wire and cabling, along with 11,760 pounds of steel and 2,776 pounds of copper extricated from one of the chillers, all of which was recycled. Burges bought a new energy-efficiency chiller from Smardt, and also installed a thermoplastic roof to reflect sunlight, rather than absorbing it.

“Businesses today are looking to colocation facilities as a solution to costly in-house data centers,” said Jeff Burges, founder of Burges Property Company, owner of DataSite Orlando. “We’re investing in this facility to ensure it reaches the optimum performance the industry and businesses are demanding today in order to remain competitive and meet future business needs.”